


Our Home, This Woman

by orphan_account



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 21:57:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5472128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Rick forgets. Sometimes she goes far away where no one can follow. In the end, Daryl is just a man and Rick Grimes is a woman. The woman.</p>
<p>Takes place in an alternate version of Season 6.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Home, This Woman

**Author's Note:**

> This is like popping the cherry to my first ever TWD fic, and so of course I'd pick a fem!Rick trope because I adore female Rick Grimes and Daryl in my head. I don't know whether I'll write a sequel to this or not but never say never~ I hope you enjoy reading this, and do leave comments/kudos if you like. :)
> 
> Just a side warning that this isn't beta-ed so any and all mistakes are mine, even though I've scoured through this a few times, just to make sure. But if there are any grammatical errors etc. please don't hesitate to point it out! I'm only human~

Ericka Grimes was five foot nothing and a hundred pounds sopping wet but even when she’d been pregnant with Lil’ Asskicker she looked like ten feet worth of raw nerve and gritted teeth.

That’s what she was, though, and that’s where her fall began. Every little thing about her was raw and frayed around the edges, the last remnants of her sane mind held together by the sheer will not to disappear into whatever pit her brain had conjured up for her over the years.

She kept her curls long now; whether to hide more of her face, more of what was going inside, or just because she couldn’t care less, Daryl didn’t know. He liked how it looked on her, liked how it frizzed, got stuck to her face with sweat, how it hung around her shoulders. He didn’t like how young it made her look, though; too young and too small.

Yet here she was, sliding her gun into the waistband of her jeans and slinging a bag onto her shoulders.

“I’m going on a run. You need anything?”

Daryl snorted and slung his crossbow over his shoulders. “I’m coming with.”

“You don’t have to,” she said, patting the walkie-talkie in her pocket. “I’ll be fine.”

“Shut up and get in the truck.”

She ran a hand through her hair – however far it could go in that tangled mess – and sighed before following him. “Stubborn ass,” she mumbled.

“Mama!”

That made them both turn and they saw Carl a little way back, holding Judith’s hands from behind as she stood on her fat little legs.

Rick smiled, tired but alive, the corners of her eyes crinkling as she jogged back to her kids, kissing Carl on the head and bending down to smack her lips onto her daughter’s chubby cheeks.

Daryl met Carl’s eyes over the exchange, the boy giving him a passive look through eyes that looked so much like his mother’s. He didn’t know whether the little punk was trying to warn him to look after his ma or keep his grubby hands off of her, so either way he gave him a two-fingered salute before hopping in and starting the truck.

\--

Daryl remembered when he first saw Ericka Grimes step out of that truck, wearing that godawful uniform that didn’t do any woman any favors, especially someone as little as her. Through all the confusion and the rage of his early days and wondering where the fuck Merle was, he still remembered that stricken look on her face as she saw her little boy and clutched at her chest with one hand, falling to her knees and pulling Carl to her.

He remembered how her asshole of a husband, Shane, had looked at Rick’s best friend Lori before running to his wife and pulling her little body into a strong embrace that would’ve been bruising, a warning sign had he been more aware of the situation back then

Everybody knew Shane had been fucking Lori. But not everyone knew Shane had been fucking her long after his wife had come back, gazing up at him with too-trusting eyes, in love with a man who didn’t love her with even a shred of the strength she loved him.

Daryl knew. He’d caught sight of them late the same night; no more than an hour after he’d undoubtedly made love to Rick he’d sneaked out and gone to Lori’s tent like a fucking asshole.

At first Daryl had thought Rick was just stupid because no woman’s husband hung around her best friend for that long without some sort of shit going down but after a while he realized that she knew all along but never said anything until things came to a head at Hershel’s farm. Until she punched Lori, who was near a foot taller than her, right in the nose, and then punched Shane’s lights out barely five seconds later.

“Do you two asswipes think I’m fucking _blind_?”

Daryl, who had been sharpening a knife by the tree had snorted to himself and Carol turned away and hid a smile.

“You insinuate anything in front of Carl again and I will end you both! Idiots!”

And then she stormed off, a chink in her armor against the world falling to the floor behind her, the first of many she left behind at that farm. He hadn’t seen it that day, but in the weeks and months that followed Daryl had seen how that betrayal, the betrayal she’d been trying so hard to acknowledge and understand, had hurt her so deeply that earning her trust was like trying to walk up a goddamn waterfall.

And then Daryl got shot by Andrea and Rick was screaming and running towards him, and then holding up most of his dead and bloody weight, practically dragging him back to the house with Glenn.

There was genuine fear in those eyes, bright and watery and the shape of his name on her lips.

Now he thought that maybe that was when he’d fallen in love with her a little. And maybe she’d fallen a little in love with him.

“Why’d you wanna go by yourself?” he asked her, taking a turn.

“Why’d _you?_ ” she retorted, and he didn’t really have anything to say to that.

After a while he dug in his pocket for a smoke and Rick reached over and pulled it out for him, her hand sliding on the outside of his thigh. She lit it for him, stared at it for a while, and then took a long drag out of it, inhaling and then blowing out a stream of clove-scented smoke.

And then she extended her arm to the side and pressed the filter to his lips until he took it from her, resultantly kissing the pads of her two fingers as he did.

“Whaddya need to get?”

She shrugged, the corners of her lips turning down wryly. “Back’s hurtin’. Knee’s hurtin’. Everythin’s hurtin’.” She chuckled mirthlessly. “Getting old.”

“ _You?_ ” he asked in disbelief. “Y’ain’t never getting old.”

“Everybody gets old, Daryl,” she laughed, sounding genuine this time, and she turned to him with that smile and the wind in her hair that plucked all the best and painful strings of his worn leather heart. People looked to her for support and leadership but all he could think of in that moment was how goddamn sweet her smile was. 

Everybody got old; that much was true. So he was just gonna have to make do with every single second he had left with this woman in this messed up world. 

“In that case I better get moving, huh?” he muttered around his cigarette. 

“What’s that?”

“Nothing. Eyes forward, woman.”

“You’re the one that’s driving.”

\--

Daryl had been around hard women all his life but when little Rick Grimes started showing, her belly growing along with the darkness in her eyes and the fathomless depths behind them, Daryl had started to get worried. He never said anything, never did anything to make it seem like he was undermining her abilities but there was something recognizable in her cracked veneer. There was steel and iron for sure. But that kind of hardness comes with claws, comes with a fracture in the mind.

That kind of instability was dangerous, more so to herself than to others. The coldness she forced herself to feed was in equal parts a weapon as a shield. 

Despite that, though, she'd long since forgiven Lori for sleeping with her asshole of a husband, had told her so when those bastards at the prison tried to fuck them over, had told her so when she and Maggie were helping Rick deliver that baby on the cold, dirty floor of a boiler room while Carl kept guard. And then they'd had to run for help because Rick was bleeding out and Daryl was mad with fear for his people and Lori got to him first, blood on her hands.

"We need help!" she'd cried. "The baby came; there's so much blood!"

He'd shoved her forward, yelling at her to lead the way as he stabbed anything that came at them.

Rick had been cold for a different reason this time. She had no pants on and the hem of her top was drenched in blood and other fluids but it was the birdlike brittleness of her hands that lay at her side, the pale deadness of her skin and the stillness of her chest that spurred an unfamiliar sensation in his chest.

"Shit," he swore, tossing his crossbow to the ground and ordering a crying Carl to stay by the door. He'd dared to place his hands on her face, down her neck, pressing into her chest. "C'mon, Miss Grimes," he coaxed quietly, listening closely to her chest for the faintest flutter of a heartbeat. "C'mon, we gotta go, woman, we're pretty fucked without you."

Then he felt it, a stronger thump against his hands.

"She's still here," he said tersely and then clasped his hands together, raised them above his head, took a breath, and brought them down hard into her sternum. Her eyes burst open as she took in her first, agonized breath, blue eyes rolling until they captured his gaze and held. "It's okay," he murmured repeatedly, slipping his arms under her so he could pick her up, tiny and frail but a will harder than iron. "I gotcha, I gotcha. C'mon, we gotta move!"

He only vaguely noticed Maggie with a little bundle, silent as her ma, and jerked his head towards the door. Carl and Lori took point, carving a path back to the cells.

Rick's head rolled against his neck, her voice weak as she spoke. "D-Daryl. Y...yer bleedin', baby."

He snorted, trying to ignore what she called him and the way she said it so casually, as if the consonants were so instinctively known across her tongue, as if she'd been saying it all her life.

"You got a little bit of red on you too, sweetheart," he murmured, holding her closer and tighter.

She could be as strong and tattered as she liked later. Because this, this wasn't weakness. This was letting go while someone else took the wheel, while someone else carried _her_ for once. And nothing had ever felt more perfect to him.

\--

Daryl watched Rick as she walked ahead of him, one hand on her back as she rubbed her right hip, hissing so softly she might not have done it at all. Her gait was off as well, her movements stiff and her back a little curved. It was really no surprise that after all the running and the getting thrown into things and the death-defying leaps and shit that their bodies came out a little worse for wear, with more scar tissue than they knew what to do with. Even little Ericka Grimes couldn't skip past that side of wear and tear.

They raided a small pharmacy, which was more stocked than they'd expected, and she browsed through the shelves for anything and everything that might end up useful to the group and anyone else in Alexandria.

Thunder rumbled outside and Daryl craned his head around to look up at the darkening sky. Just in time, his walkie-talkie crackled.

"Daryl? Rick? You there?"

"'Sup, Glenn?"

"Storm's coming in real soon. Was clear earlier. You guys heading back yet?"

A light patter started and lightning spiderwebbed the sky.

"How heavy is it your side?"

A short rumble and then, "We've already got a bit of flooding. You guys might wanna hunker down until morning if it keeps going."

Rick frowned over her shoulder, arms deep in a medicine cabinet. "That bad?"

Just then there was a booming crack of thunder that vibrated the windows and Rick's expression fell, torn between wanting to go back to her kids and worried about whether they'd get stuck along the way.

"Tell him to keep us updated through the night. We should stay."

Daryl nodded. "Y'hear that, Glenn?"

"Got it. We'll check in every two hours."

Rick grinned a little and waved around a box of water purifying tablets. 

"Take it in shifts. And get everyone to collect as much water as they can."

"Roger. Glenn out."

Daryl checked the time and made a mental note to call in two hours when Rick came walking up to him carrying two baskets stacked with boxes and bottles of every variety and need, smiling one of her hopeful little smiles.

"What the hell have you got there?" he asked, a little amused.

"Paracetamol, potable aqua, hydrocortisone, muscle rub-"

"Everything, basically," he interrupted, folding his arms.

She shrugged, sheepishly. "Basically."

He shook his head. "We'll put it in the truck and find some place to sleep."

"We can sleep in the truck," she said, confused.

"Unless you wanna be even more crippled than you already are..." He let the rest hang and she nodded in consideration and followed him out into the rain.

\--

Daryl hadn't known what to do with himself after the prison. Even with Beth at his side there was a gaping hole where a small woman used to be.

He'd tried not to think about it for days, about how close she was to those Woodbury bastards when it all went down, about how he'd tried to find her amidst the chaos and come up with _nothing_.

"She's still alive, you know?"

There was no point in lying anymore. Least of all to Beth, the one gift in all this shit.

"How'd you know?"

She laughed, tired and her eyes still word with grief. "Because it's _Rick_. And you're _Daryl._ "

"What's that s'posed to mean?"

She smiled, enigmatic and sweet and much too good for this world.

"You don't see what we see when you're together. It's like gravity. You know what she's thinking without her having to say a word. You always know where each other is without having to take your eyes away if you can help it."

He shrugged, staring at the dusty wooden floor of the porch of this old, deadened house.

"We work well together."

"Yeah," Beth agreed. "You could on opposite sides of the same room and everyone would still know."

"Everyone?"

"Everyone."

He was silent for a long while and then muttered, "Don't think she knows."

Beth laughed then, genuine in her agreement. "She can be a bit thick like that. But she's shown time and time again that you're the first one she looks to when something needs doing. Maybe you just gotta spell it out for her one day."

Daryl sighed. "Gotta find that woman first."

"You will," Beth told him, sure to the very core. "Or she'll find you."

\--

They climbed the stairs of a shop to the small flat upstairs, which was empty and fairly clean considering. It had the cold feel of a place not lived in for a long time and Daryl saw Rick shiver a little as she pulled off her wet shirt, revealing the white tank top underneath. He tried not to stare at her white bra that was visible underneath the wet material and went to raid the other rooms while she browsed through the kitchen.

He found a closet full of clothes and a suitcase to put them in. There was linen that they could use for bandages, a couple of duvets and towels and he found a sweater - large but feminine - that Rick could wear for the night.

"Hey!" she called over the sound of the rain. "We got some canned fruit here for dinner."

He walked back into the living room and stopped short at the sight of Rick in her white bra and briefs as she climbed up onto the counter to look through the top cupboards.

"Hey, you reckon we need any pots and pans?" she asked him, looking over her shoulder, and Daryl did his damnest to keep his face neutral. "This cupboard's stocked."

Her knee slipped just then and he made a move to dart in and catch her should she fall only for her to grab onto the shelf for support. 

"Whoops. That wouldn't've done my back any favors."

Annoyed, he snapped at her. "Get down from there, woman, before you break your neck!" He tossed the pale blue sweater onto the kitchen table and then marched off to change. "And put some goddamn clothes on!"

 

They set a duvet out on the floor by the window because the bed was too musty, and Daryl reluctantly hunkered down next to her, wearing only a pair of loose flannel pants that must've belonged to the previous inhabitant's husband, when Rick helpfully pointed out that they wouldn't get cold this way.

They ate a can of peaches each, saving the rest for the people back home, fluffing some pillows to rest their backs against. In the before time this all would've been really disgustingly domestic, a young couple just moved into a new place and sleeping on the floor until they could afford a bed. In the before time he would've sneered at those happy little shits with their nauseatingly lovesick expressions.

Now, with Rick next to him in a too-big sweater that was falling off one shoulder as she drank the rest of the peach syrup from the can, he figured that having that sort of life with her wouldn't've been so bad at all.

“Hope the fort’s holding,” she said, swiping her finger around the inside of the can for the last dregs of syrup. Watching that finger disappear into her mouth turned him on more than any one of Merle’s porno mags ever could. 

Daryl raised the walkie-talkie to his mouth. “Glenn. The fort holding?”

A crackle, and then, “It’s holding. Tell Rick to go the hell to sleep.”

She gave the a pointed glare and grumbled a, “Night, Glenn.” She set the empty can aside and stretched her neck and shoulders, producing a series of cricks and pops and snaps, wincing a little as something caught in her lower back. “Shit,” she murmured. 

“You take any pills?” he asked, putting his own can aside. 

“Yeah. Didn’t do much good. I think I just need to lie down. _Ah!_ Shit, that hurts.” She twisted onto her side and tried setting herself down for sleep, but paused, her face a mask of pain as she waited for her muscles to relax. 

Licking his thumb he jerked his chin. “You go on and lie on your belly.”

“Huh?” She squinted up at him.

“Ma had a bad knee, Merle had a shit shoulder – dislocated it too many times. Only thing those two ever had in common was them saying I had good hands.”

Rick blinked, all big eyes and head tilted to the side like some goddamn stray pup. “You’re gonna give me a massage, Mister Dixon?” she asked dubiously. 

“You want me to ask you to dinner first?” he shot back, and she smiled, amused. 

“And here I thought you were just gonna take me to bed and leave me in the morning.”

He rolled his eyes. “Shut up and get down.”

Her laughter was quiet and deep-throated, and she obediently got onto her hands and knees – a position he really didn’t need seared into his mind – and gingerly lowered herself onto their makeshift bed. 

“’Kay,” he began, hands hovering over the hem of her sweater. “I’m gonna lift this up so I’d appreciate if you didn’t punch me in the eye or nothing.”

She laughed under her breath and tugged the sweater up around the middle of her chest, revealing an expanse of scarred, sun-browned skin, the nobs of her spine rising and dipping up the length of her back. 

“I reckon you might’ve seen me in all sorts of states of undress before so I’ll let this time slide, baby.”

Baby. She hadn’t called him baby since she’d been high off pain and loss of blood. But it still did things to him that he was too insecure to mention out loud. 

Snorting he pressed his thumbs into the dimples of her back, eliciting a hiss and a groan of pain from her throat. 

“Yeah, we’ll see how chipper you are while I work those knots out of your back.”

She groaned again and Daryl winced as he felt the tight muscles underneath his fingers, little bumps and tight coils below her skin that ached until she stiffened all over. 

“Ahh, feels worse than I thought it was,” she managed to say, clenching her fists into the pillow and her toes into the sheets. 

Daryl chuckled under his breath when he ran his thumbs over an inflamed row of muscles just below her pelvis and she let out a small squeak, her face scrunched up in pain. 

“Sweetheart, you are wound tighter than a corkscrew on a spring. You gotta relax for me or this is gonna take way longer.”

“I’ll stick my fingers into _your_ spine and we’ll see how relaxed you are then,” she groused.

Shaking his head Daryl placed his palm flat on the middle of her back and gently but firmly ran it down her skin, much like he used to do to the particularly wild and flighty horses. “C’mon now, Rick,” he soothed. “Lemme help you. You just gotta relax for me.”

After a while, whether it was the soothing motion of him stroking her back or whether she acknowledged the necessity of his words, she slowly unwound, sinking her weight into the ground, her shoulders untightening themselves from their stiff posture. This was just another thing that the years living in constant fear and vigilance had done to her body; the perpetual and hard-holding tension that had deposited itself into every line and muscle of her little body. The stress would kill her sooner than Daryl would let any walker get to her. 

“There we go,” he murmured and then started to work on her again, increasing his pressure in stages rather than all at once.

“You may have good hands,” she said in a sleepy voice, “but I’d rob a bank for you if you spoke to me like that.”

Daryl rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Yeah, yeah, you just shut up and lie still, woman.”

The curve of her cheek lifted in a smile as her eyes drooped shut. “You talking back to me, citizen?”

“N’ I thought that was why you kept me around.”

She hummed. “I keep you around for a lot of reasons, Daryl Dixon. The fact that you talk back to me is only one of many.”

\--

Shacking up with the Claimers was one of the lowest points in Daryl’s life, or perhaps that was the reason he’d joined them in the first place besides the obvious fact that they would’ve killed him otherwise. 

And maybe he knew that he needed them to keep him alive for as long as it took for him to get better and find Rick. 

That night in the woods was recalled in stark clarity, the highest definition of any of his memories, generating emotions that were as fresh as they were the night it all happened. 

“You screwed up, you little bitch,” Joe drawled, holding a gun to Rick’s head. “You screwed up.”

And then he began the countdown but her eyes remained on Carl in the car while Dan leered at him through the window. 

Maybe it was the shock that _god_ , Rick was alive. Michonne and Carl were there too. The others were probably alive as well. But _Rick was alive_.

“ _Stop._ ” He walked out into the circle, gazing between Joe and Rick, who had started at the sound of his voice, her mouth parting at the sight of him standing there. “You gotta let her go, Joe. Gotta let ‘em all go. They’re good people.”

Joe narrowed his eyes at him, a slow grin of understanding spreading across his face. 

“So.” He chuckled lowly, running the barrel along Rick’s face from chin to temple. “ _This your girl, Daryl?_ Because you see, she killed two of our own. So when you say she’s _good people_ …well, that’s a lie right there. And you know what we do to liars.”

The sound of the car door opening and Dan pulling Carl out had Rick’s eyes tearing from his and she rose up on her knees. 

“You leave him alone,” she whispered, and then raised her voice a little more, something dark and dangerous coating her words. “You leave my boy alone.” Pain bloomed in Daryl’s side as two of the others took him down and Rick shouted his name. “Stop it-! Ah!” Joe’s hands tightened in her hair, jerking her neck back and holding her still. 

“Now, hold on, boys, hold on. Hold Daryl up. I want him to see something.” 

“Mom!” Carl called with frightened eyes as Dan shoved him to the dirt and he immediately tried crawling over to her before giant fists grabbed the back of his shirt and tugged him to his knees, Dan laughing right in his ear in a way that made Daryl’s stomach turn. 

“Let go of my boy,” she growled, trying to jerk her hair out of Joe’s grip. “Don’t touch him, you fucker, _don’t you touch him!_ ”

“On and on and on and on,” Joe chuckled, shaking his head at Daryl. “Women just never stop nagging do they? But I guess everybody has a type, huh? Looks like yours is a little hellion, eh, Daryl?” He gripped her jaw and made her look up at him, and Joe lowered his filthy head and stared right into Rick’s dead, dark eyes and grinned right in her face. “Now, honey, this is what’s gonna happen. A little, uh, retribution for killing our friends. _First_ , you n’ me are gonna have some fun. While we’re at it,” at this he winked at Daryl, “Daryl’s gonna watch. And _then_ , we’re gonna take your boy, right in front of you, and then your friend over there, and _then_ , we’re gonna shoot ‘em. Stick a bullet right between their eyes. N’ save you for last. Then we’ll be _even_.”

“You sick sonovabitch,” Daryl spat, blood dribbling from his mouth, jerking his arms but then someone kicked him in the kidneys and he fell over choking.

“Hold him up, fellas, I want him to see.” Joe swung around behind Rick, who kept her eyes on Carl as he struggled with Dan and Daryl knew, through the haze of pain, that Rick would never forgive him if he could’ve saved her son but chose her instead. “I want him to watch as I _fuck_ his woman.” He wrapped a hand around Rick’s neck, choking her just enough to incapacitate her, and Daryl heard the tell-tale sound of a buckle and a zip and Carl screaming for his mother as Michonne clenched her hands by her side, chest heaving as her eyes, wide and panicked, darted between Rick and Carl, who sobbed as Dan pushed him onto his front, pawing at his clothes. 

Daryl breathed heavily, unable move, to do anything as Joe slammed Rick onto her stomach and yanked her jeans down but Rick didn’t take her eyes off of her son, something cold and gone, her conscience travelling somewhere else, somewhere closer to her boy. 

“Mom!” Carl sobbed, fingers scrabbling the ground. “No! Stop, _stop!_ ”

Daryl felt rage like none other at the sound of that boy’s cries for his ma, and he wanted to shout out that fury when Joe licked the side of Rick’s neck and murmured to her, “Y’hear that? Your boy crying like that? That’s your fault, y’know? That’s all on you. Now let’s see what comes outta that pretty mouth of yours.”

Rick’s eyes were too far-gone, and he couldn’t watch this, he couldn’t see this happen to her, because though she encompassed a space that was too big her body was so small and they were going to hurt her. But then her eyes rolled up to meet his and Daryl held his breath. 

And there it was. 

_Feral_.

She was on her back in an instant, looking up at him and Joe laughed down at her. “And just what’re you gonna do-?”

She opened her mouth wide and sank her teeth into Joe’s neck before he could so much as blink and Daryl grabbed the gun from the man behind him, shooting the two of them in the head in quick succession while Michonne took care of her captor. Joe gurgled and choked on his own blood from the chunk taken out of his neck. 

Rick was darker and fiercer than any walker but right then she looked like a queen, blood dripping from her mouth and her eyes cold as she walked towards Dan and Carl with a knife in her hand, Dan, the fucking coward, blubbering and using Carl as a shield. 

“Get your hands off my boy,” she rasped, and Dan let go of Carl who fell to the ground, shaking and his teeth chattering. 

Daryl might’ve stopped her. Might’ve kept that from her. Might’ve shot Dan before she got her hands bloody. But when she drove that knife, slowly and incessantly, into Dan’s thick flesh, over and over and over again, the sight of Carl, his jeans tugged low on his hips, crying and stumbling until Daryl caught him. 

“You’re okay, kiddo. You’re fine,” he said, squeezing his shoulders. 

“M-mom, my mom, is she, is she…did he,” he stuttered, eyes wild. 

“She’s fine,” Michonne said, pulling him into a hug that he gratefully fell into. “She’s going to be okay.” Then she glanced at Daryl and mouthed ‘ _go_ ’. 

Daryl was on his feet, cautiously making his way over to where Rick knelt on the ground over Dan’s mutilated body, staring vacantly into the distance. It just came to him, then, that it’d been weeks since he’d seen her. He just wished it hadn’t been like this, that he hadn’t brought this on them. Because there went another shard of her fragmented sanity, and it was all his fault. 

“Rick,” he said quietly, crouching down by her. “Rick, you with me?”

Her throat moved as she swallowed and turned to meet his gaze. 

“Daryl.”

He wanted to smile, but could only manage a rueful twist of his mouth. 

“Rick.”

She looked down at her hands, bloody and wet, and he ached to reach out and hold them. 

“You being an idiot and blaming yourself, Dixon?” she asked bluntly, and he hadn’t expected it. 

“Rick, I-”

“If you apologize, I will drive this knife into your fucking eye, y’understand me?” She blazed with anger, sneering at him like he’d just crawled out of a pile of shit and maybe that wasn’t too far off an analogy. “You found us. If you hadn’t been with those folk you’d be scraping me, my son’s and Michonne’s naked bodies off the ground or you’d have to shoot us in the fuckin’ head.” Her mouth shook, her eyes shining with tears that were part pain and part fear and part relief. “That bastard coulda done a whole lot worse with my baby.” She gripped his cheek with one bloody hand and glared. “So don’t you ever apologize for finding us.”

Daryl fell a little more in love with her then, because how could one woman bring him to his knees and raise him up like he was worth more than the hell that spat him out? How could she look at him with nothing but fierce pride and loyalty after he failed to protect her and her son from those scums?

But if that’s what she wanted then what choice did he have?

Swallowing, he dipped his head in an awkward nod. 

“Yes ma’am.”

Palm still on his cheek, she leaned in close until he could breathe her air and smell dead man’s blood on her breath. 

“You’re mine, Daryl Dixon. You’re one of us.” Shaking her head, helplessness seeped into her voice. “I can’t do this without you.”

Being strong for himself was easy. Being strong for her was a gift. 

“I ain’t leaving you, woman. You’re mine too.”

\--

“Sit up,” Daryl said gently, his palms still tingling with the feel of Rick’s skin, of this goddamn woman who had crawled into every gaping hole left by his family, the shit storm of his life before the end and everything that came after. 

“Huh?” she grunted, halfway to sleep, and he loathed to jostle her but wanted to do a thorough job. 

“Sit up. Lemme do your neck.”

She grunted again and slowly sat up, the hem of her sweater falling back over her body and hiding it like a curtain. It was dark now and the rain roared over their heads, the thunder and lightning continuous and crackling. 

He dug his thumb and forefinger into the pressure points of her neck, moving up and down her tender skin and wholly affected by the little noises she made. Her dark, messy curls fell over his fingers and all he wanted to do was get tangled in that dark brown mane and her soft-hard little body. 

With feather-light, tentative touches, he slid one hand down her neck to her bare shoulder, the other one on the side of her head, and he stretched her neck out slowly to one side, feeling every pop, every line of tightness and gently easing her muscles into docility. 

“There we go,” he murmured under his breath. “That’s a good girl.”

She hummed and he repeated the motions on the other side, unable to help himself when his fingers briefly stroked the crook of her neck. And when she bared her neck a little more, like she was actively seeking his touch, he felt something shift inside him, in the air that surrounded them, this bubble of potential and prospect, and all of a sudden he felt…calm. 

Daryl let his hands slide down her arms until they came to a rest on top of her hands, unmoving and solid, waiting without expectation. 

They stayed like that for a while, him breathing her in, resting on this moment of clarity and perfection, a moment of utter stillness and comfort. And then slowly, she turned her head a little and he imagined the curve of her face and the gentle flick of her eyelash, a silhouette he could only just make out in the pitch of their room. 

Then she turned one hand palm up. And he slipped his hand into hers and laced their fingers; his large hand swallowing her little one like it was meant to all these years. 

“Daryl,” she whispered. 

He shifted in closer; curling his other hand loosely around her waist so she could pull away any time she wanted to, and brought his face next to hers, the tip of his nose barely grazing her cheek. 

“Rick,” he murmured back.

They couldn’t see each other, and maybe this would be something left in the dark of this room of a nameless town. Maybe the day would steal their memories and they’d go back to Alexandria and remain the magnetic forces that revolved around each other. But one thing was for damn sure; whatever happened tonight wouldn't change what they were to each other. 

Nothing would change what he felt for Ericka Grimes, and call him arrogant but he knew in that moment she felt the same way about him. 

He nudged her with his nose until she turned fully, their foreheads touching and her mouth so close to his. Her fingers danced across the stubble of his jaw, and in the little bit of life that emanated from the sky outside, he saw two pinpricks in her sleepy, doe eyes. 

And then they were kissing, the barest brushes of lips upon lips, the scent and taste of tinned peaches, the stickiness of sugary syrup, his mouth on hers.

She was barbed wire and knifed hands and red teeth at her best and worst. But here, right now, she was soft and supple, yielding and hopeful, docile as a kitten but just as fragile. He tested the waters and ran the tip of his tongue on the inside of her upper lip and she gasped, parting for him and welcoming him into her mouth, angling her head perfectly so their mouths and lips and tongues slid over each other _just so_. Daryl drank her in, his rough, stubbly jaw rubbing across her skin. Whatever they did or didn’t do tonight there’d be no mistake to the others that Daryl had kissed Rick, had kissed his girl like a fucking teenager, like a man starved and satiated with the relief of having her kiss him back.

He could’ve been happy with this. Just this once.

But then she hesitated and cautiously, slowly crawled into his lap and _fuck_ , he needed her there and never wanted to leave.

He had an armful of Rick with her dark curls, in her soft sweater and nothing but a pair of panties and her legs around his hips. One of her hands buried themselves into his hair and _pulled_ , while the other ran down his neck, thumb tracing his collar bone, clutching at his chest and then back up to join its counterpart in his hair.

He let his own hands slip under the hem of her sweater and explored the body that wasn’t revealed to him before. The tautness of her stomach, the muscles around her waist, each rung of her ribs until his thumbs swiped the undersides of her breasts, making her squirm and eliciting a small, near inaudible whimper that was muffled by his mouth.

Daryl had never taken a woman like this, had never liked, much less _loved_ a woman enough to do anything but fuck her. He wasn’t really the love ‘em and leave ‘em kind of guy because the women he’d been with hadn’t ever wanted anything other than a quick tangle in the sheets, up against a wall or in the back of his car anyway.

But with Rick. With Rick he wanted to take his time. If this was all he was going to get he wanted to give her something that might make her come back, that might make her say she wanted him as much as he wanted her.

So when his thumbs brushed over her nipples and she pulled her mouth away, moaning, he did it again, loving the way her forehead rolled against his and how her fingers tightened in his hair.

Shit, this woman was making him sentimental and aroused as fuck.

\--

Noah was too good a boy for those cops at the hospital. Daryl knew cops like Dawn were desperate, held their assets close to the chest, were like children when they lost something and treated other people like assets they owned.

And there was Beth, sneering at Dawn and gripping Noah’s hand.

“Hey,” Noah said quietly, trying to smile, “it’s okay. At least you got out, right? And you got your people.” Then his face crumpled and he hugged her tight. “You go on, now, Beth.”

Rick watched the two with an unreadable expression on her face and Daryl tensed instinctively. There was something flat with the way she stared at them, and then he looked behind at Dawn’s smug little smile. Noah limped over to the other side, nodding at Rick as he passed, and she reached out and squeezed his upper arm, saying something in that silent way of hers, something that Noah hadn’t yet learned how to decipher but it made him hesitate before he continued his trek.

Daryl grit his teeth when he reached Dawn, who said, all high and fucking mighty just because she wore a stupid cop uniform - as if that shit even mattered anymore, “I knew you’d come back.”

It set something off in Beth too, and Daryl instinctively grabbed her hand and pulled her back.

“Don’t you be doin’ anything stupid now,” he whispered harshly. “Maggie’s on the way.”

Rick stared at Dawn and the others behind her, the cops who were waiting, who were tense, who clearly didn’t have her back. And Daryl only realized what she was going to do the second after the gunshot sounded and Dawn slumped to the floor. Rick gazed serenely at the other cops, at the guns pointed at her and the click and flurry of her people’s weapons.

“Hold your weapons,” one of the others said, voice trembling. “Stand down!”

Rick held her arm up and Daryl waited for the order as she strolled over to Dawn’s body, which was lying in a pool of blood. When she looked up he could just imagine the expression on her cold face.

“We’re taking Noah.”

There was a brief moment where nobody spoke, and then the other female cop nodded slowly. “It was about her, anyway. It was always about her.”

Rick waited until Noah stumbled back across the divide and Rick clapped his shoulder, sending him back to Beth.

As the group left the prison Daryl hung back with Rick as her mind went somewhere he couldn’t follow. When she showed no sign of return, though, Daryl snapped, unable to hold it back any longer. He grabbed her shoulder, wakefulness flickering into her eyes, and slammed her into a wall, pressing his forehead against hers and glaring down at her infuriatingly surprised expression and her irritating, confused frown.

“Daryl, what-?”

“What the _fuck_ was that?” he demanded, gripping the sides of her face. “Do you know how fuckin’ _stupid_ you were! That coulda ended in a bloodbath!”

She gaped at him. “But I _knew-!_ ”

“They coulda _shot you!_ ” She slammed her mouth shut, teeth clicking loudly, but she remained defiant and fierce. “You don’t get to do stupid things like that, Rick. Not when there are people waitin’ for you. Carl, Judith.” She looked down but he forced her eyes back up, his nose brushing against hers as he forced her to look into his eyes, to understand what he was trying to say. “Y’can’t do that to us, Rick. Y’cant do that to me. ‘Cuz I can’t do this without you.”

Daryl watched her rebelliousness melt away like wax on a burning candle, and it was replaced with something strange, something like confusion and puzzlement, like she was trying to look behind his words to see what he really meant even though he’d laid it there as bare and as open for everyone to see.

She licked her lips and swallowed and he followed the movement with his eyes and he knew she saw that.

“M’ sorry,” came her breathy voice at last, sounding sincere. “I’m sorry.”

Daryl sighed and closed his eyes, loosening the hard fingers that dug into her jaw and the back of her neck.

He could’ve kissed her then but Daryl wouldn’t have felt right about it; not in the middle of a close call like that. She could’ve kissed him too. But maybe she’d felt the same way.

Later, when they’d walked out into the empty parking lot they found the rest of their people happy and glad that Beth was, once again, where she belonged. Maggie had her sister in her arms, the two of them weeping and laughing while Glenn stood back and looked up to meet his and Rick’s eyes.

The grin on his face morphed a little, turned speculative and searching. Daryl arched a brow at him when Rick got distracted by Michonne, and Glenn grinned, shit-eating and smug and amused all in one.

Bunch of fucking soap opera queens, this group.

\--

The room shook as thunder boomed overhead but the only thing Daryl was aware of was Rick’s mouth and her tongue, and then the taste of her skin as he kissed and sucked at that slender, breakable neck of hers.

She sighed audibly and Daryl grunted as she moved ever closer and unconsciously rolled her hips into him, moving against his hardening member, separated only by the thin flannel of his pants and the soft cotton of her panties, her cunt flush against his cock. Hot breath ghosted against his ear and he gripped her hips and slowly, gloriously, rolled them against his, forcing a needy groan from her and a sharp hiss from him.

As she continued to undulate her hips into his, slow and unhurried and deliberate, he ran his fingers along the top of her white panties and then slipped them below the band, sliding along her wet lips until he reached that slippery bundle of nerves that had her _throbbing_.

“Fuck,” he cursed, gritting his teeth as he rubbed slow circles around her clit. “ _Fuck_.”

And then her teeth clamped down in the juncture of his neck as she bit back a moan, and the pleasure-pain sent a jolt right down to is cock.

“Ngh. Ngh, Daryl, you’re- Mmm,” she hummed, gripping his hair until it stung, but it felt so damn good. One of her hands wandered down to his waistband and pushed it down, and a moment later Daryl bit back a curse as her warm little hand gripped his cock and _tugged_ , nice and slow.

Rick was going to make him cum like a teenager if she didn’t stop, so he grabbed her shoulders and flipped her onto her back and pushed her sweater up to her neck just as a flash of lightning lit her right up and Daryl’s mouth ran dry. 

Her small, heaving breasts, her eyes heavy-lidded and gazing right at him like he’d just fucked her seven ways till Sunday. And god, he intended to.

Lightning flashed through her fever-bright eyes as she extended one hand and stroked his cheek with the backs of her fingers, gentle and so fucking soft.

“What’re you waiting for, baby?” she asked, with a voice that sounded like feathers. 

How was she even real?

“Sweetheart, all y’ever had to do was ask.”

\--

Daryl couldn't do anything as Rick regressed those first few days in Alexandria. He couldn’t stop the turning gyre of her mind that conjured images of the outside and he wondered why she had to be so afflicted while the shift from outside to inside was gradual and far smoother for him. Where had he failed along the way? Where didn’t he support her or ease her fears or was it just because she was leading them in a way that he never could and now she didn’t know how to stop or why they were stopped. 

She didn’t understand walls and houses of the before. Linen and running water and fucking parties as these people lived their happy, oblivious lives. 

And yet there was Jessie, who just had to smile that stupid smile of his and she _listened_. Jessie with his alcoholic wife who beat her kids when he wasn’t looking, who tried being friends with Rick because she saw her husband paid her a little too much attention and she wanted to keep her enemies closer. 

Rick saw her for what she was: a danger to her group and a wicked woman who didn’t deserve the husband she had or the kids she’d birthed. 

But Daryl was a selfish bastard and he didn’t care about any of that. Figured it wasn’t his place until it was. He cared about the fact that Rick twisted the hem of her shirt as she spoke to Jessie. He cared that one time he’d made her laugh and she’d smiled, the shadows chased away to reveal the brightness of her pretty eyes. 

He cared about the fact that when he made himself known she’d dropped Jessie like a candy wrapper and jogged up to him, letting him place an arm around her shoulders and lead her back to the house they all shared. 

But then she’d snapped not two days later while he wasn’t around to stop her, to hold her and make her _look at him_. He wasn’t there to jerk the gun away from her and tell her to cry because that’s what she needed now that they were safe behind walls. He hadn’t been there for her when she was tossed into that pathetic excuse of a jail, or when she broke out and saved those folk from that lone walker, or when she shot Jessie’s wife right in the head after she attacked Deanna’s husband. 

All he’d seen was that familiar not-there expression and the smoking barrel of a gun and the almost curious tilt of her head as she surveyed her kill. 

“Killing walkers is easy,” she said, almost to herself. “Ya’ll can learn how to kill walkers. In fact, you need to learn seeing as you’ve no idea what you’re doing and I reckon my Carl coulda put a stop to this before it got outta hand.” She turned to Jessie then, but there was no guilt on her face. “Sorry about your wife. But she put her hands on your boys. This shoulda been your job.”

Nobody spoke, nobody even moved, too stunned by what had transpired. Out there in the open this would’ve been Sunday brunch. But Daryl didn’t like the look in her eyes, didn’t like the near casual, careless way she spoke. Didn’t like the fact that she was segregating herself when she needed this place to mend her body as well as her mind. Most of all he didn’t like the fact that a small smile was playing on the corners of her lips, a smile that was thankfully hidden behind blood and gore.

That smile had no place being on her face. 

“Rick,” he said suddenly, garnering everyone’s attention, but the only woman he’d ever have eyes for took a moment to realize her name was being called. She looked up and blinked, like she was seeing him for the first time, but slowly recognition lit up in her blank eyes. 

“Daryl. You’re back.”

He nodded, casually strolling over to her and taking the gun away from her limp hand. “You don’t need this anymore.” He slipped it into his back pocket. 

“Not when you’re here,” she agreed immediately, and it might’ve been a joke, something said in jest, except she wasn’t laughing and neither was he.

“Yeah, I’m here.” He took her hands, grimacing at the red. “Looks like you held down the fort just fine while I was gone.” 

She frowned at their hands, confused. “Uh huh.”

“You did good. Now let’s getcha cleaned up.”

He led her away from the group, surreptitiously motioning for Morgan to follow. At the house he told Morgan to stay downstairs, and he took her up to the bathroom, filled the tub and turned away as she undressed and slipped into the lukewarm bath, staining the water pink.

Daryl went downstairs while she washed up and found Morgan on one of the couches, his body sagging into the cushions. 

“So,” he said, looking up at Daryl. “That’s Ericka now, huh?”

Daryl inspected him aloofly, for any sign of judgment; his fierce, overprotectiveness of that woman was going to damn him to fucking hell one of these days. When he didn’t find anything he felt his shoulders slump with fatigue and he dropped down onto the opposite couch and said wearily,

“That’s Rick now.”

Morgan nodded to himself. “What happened to her? She wasn’t ever that…cold.”

Daryl shrugged. It wasn’t his place. “Lotta things happened to all of us. Lotta bad shit happened to Rick. She don’t trust people easily anymore.” Then he pinned Morgan with a look. “She won’t trust you either. Just letting you know straight up.”

Morgan grinned ruefully. “I wouldn’t trust me either after what happened before. She asked for help and I was so far gone from my right mind that I could barely place her.” He shrugged then. “But someone’s gonna have to bring her back from wherever she’s gone.”

“And you think _you’re_ the guy to do that?” Daryl asked, a little tetchily if anyone was listening right.

With a mirthless chuckle Morgan shook his head. “I don’t think so, man. As you said; she ain’t gonna trust me that easy.”

At that moment Daryl heard Rick’s bare feet coming down the stairs. She was wearing only a dark blue robe, her hair dripping onto the wooden floor.

“Hey,” he said carefully, standing up, “you alright, Rick?”

She nodded slowly and Daryl saw her body shake, whether from the cold or something else he couldn’t say.

“Carl and Judith are at Carol’s. Reckon it’s better they stay there for the night. You good with that?”

She nodded again and walked towards him, with no indication that she’d seen Morgan.

“Y’wanna hear something funny?” she asked, twisting the edge of her sleeve.

“What?”

Her mouth twitched. “They imprisoned a cop. I don’t need a get-out-of-jail pass to be able to escape. Fucking idiots.”

“Now, come on, Rick, you know that’s not true,” he told her, but she was focused on a random spot on the floor. “You can help these people, Rick. You done it before. Those folks from Woodbury, remember?”

Suddenly she glared at him, eyes blazing and her teeth bared. “Fat load of good that did. Everyone ‘cept Sasha is _dead_.”

“N’ that was _not_ your fault!” he snapped. “You did your best, Rick. Tried to reason with that sonovabitch and it didn’t work out because he was a goddamn _psycho!_ ”

“My job was to make sure they’d be fine when that goddamn psycho screwed us over! But none of us were!” she shouted, chest heaving with rage and exertion.

“But _we are!_ We’re still here, Rick! Your family, your boy, your girl? We came through!”

“But so many _didn’t!_ ” she cried, her face crumpling. “And some of them…I can’t even remember their names. You think when shit goes down here I’ll remember _theirs?_ ”

And what could Daryl say to that? What could he possibly tell her when he’d forgotten names too? Faces and conversations and the briefest feelings of friendship that weren’t even half recalled. But that wasn’t what she needed to hear, nor was it what she wanted to be. Daryl knew Rick. She was good. She’d started out as good and he’d be damned to walker hell if he didn’t make sure she stayed that way.

“But I bet they’d remember you,” he said quietly. “You made ‘em last a little longer in this shit storm. They’d be stupid not to remember you. You can do that for these folk too.” He felt a pang of guilt when her eyes filled with tears and she wrapped her arms around herself as if they were the only things holding her together. “And y’ain’t doing it alone. I know you got some ridiculous hero complex but Jesus, woman, sometimes you gotta let other people take the reins on you.”

She inhaled a shuddering breath, her voice softer than he’d ever heard it. “I’m really tired, Daryl. I don’t…I don’t even know what’s happening anymore.”

He moved before he had to think about it, wrapping his arms around her and stroking the back of her head while she broke down into quiet, deeply felt sobs of immeasurable pain and confusion.

“M’ here for you, Rick. Let me help.”

 

Later, when she’d finally passed out on the couch, he carried her up to her bedroom and laid her down. All that crying and the fact that her hair was wet was going to give her one hell of a cold the next morning, but at least it would ensure she stayed in bed for as long as it took her to start getting back up onto her feet.

Still, he’d be there. That woman was tough as nails. But she needed help.

Morgan had his eyes closed, meditating or whatever the hell he was doing, and Daryl rubbed the bridge of his nose between his eyes, the exhaustion of the day sagging into his bones. 

“You’re in love with that woman, aren’t you?”

Daryl glanced up at Morgan, whose eyes were still closed, and snorted to himself. 

“And we got another gossip queen on board. You’ll be well at home here.”

\--

Rick kissed Daryl like she never wanted to stop – slow, insistent, thorough, a little shy, like she expected him to suddenly push her away. But he could feel the electricity under her skin, the way her hands shook as they hovered over him, her touches tentative but stained with the burgeoning desire to cling.

Daryl kissed her like he couldn’t believe. Because sometimes he looked at her and he just _couldn’t_. He felt the same way now; he couldn’t _believe_ how small she was in his arms, how her lips were soft and sensitive to every bite he gave them, how her tongue slid sensuously along his as he explored her mouth, plundered her, barely giving her time to breathe. He couldn’t believe how sensitive her breasts were, how she leaned into him when he cupped one, small and lovely; he couldn’t believe that _keening_ and _desperate_ sound that tore from her throat when he closed his mouth around her perfect breast. 

When he cupped her cunt she surged against him, clamping her teeth down on the other side of his neck and groaning so loudly she nearly drowned out the rain beating on the roof. Discretion had gone and fucked itself sideways at this point and he was sure that one glare at all the fuckers who dared stare at either one of them once they got back would shut them right up again.

Right now Rick, the woman he’d been in love with for fuck knows how long, was moving her hips into his hand, making filthy little noises and even more beautiful expressions whenever lightning lit up her anguished, distressed features. 

She moaned, hot and open-mouthed against his mouth and her blunt nails tracked red down his back. His fingers were slick with her wetness and he felt her shudder, deeply and violently when he slipped one finger inside her, his palm flat against her swollen clit.

Fuck, she was a like something out of a dream tonight; he had a hard time placing himself in this room with her, realizing that it was all real, that this wasn’t going to be some fantasy he’d conjured in his head because his brain finally caught up to all the trauma and the only thing that could possibly make that nightmare worth living in was _Rick, Rick, Rick._

With two fingers in the clutch of her cunt he curled them _just right_ , and it had her gasping audibly, scrabbling for purchase with her arms and legs like he was a goddamn tree. His cock slid against the inside of her thigh, so close and she hummed a wanton and vulgar sound.

“D-Daryl,” she breathed, when he removed his fingers and she chased them with her hips. “Daryl, I-I _need_ -”

“Shh,” he hushed, taking purchase of her hips and moving her up a little. “I got you,” he murmured, their foreheads, mouths and noses touching as he slowly lowered her onto his cock, “I got you, Rick.”

Daryl had never held a woman like this. Rick would, in all likelihood, be his last, and even if all he had was tonight, that would be enough because he didn’t need to be able to see her face to know its expression, to feel her awe and ecstasy once she was filled as far as he could go, to know innately the meaning of her short, cut-off gasp.

Her body shuddered against him and she pressed soft little butterfly kisses on his jaw, his mouth, his neck and his collarbone. And this softness of hers, this hidden tenderness that was revealed to so few people, was enough to make his heart ache for her.

He rocked up into her once, experimentally, assessing her reaction, and was rewarded by her knees digging into his hips and her walls clenching around his dick. She licked her lips, and he briefly saw her eyes drift shut as he rocked into her again and again, slow and methodical, intent on dragging this out as long as possible. Daryl was known for tender moments that were few and far between but with Rick, _god, with Rick._

She slid over his cock like she’d been doing it her whole life; she let him take charge and lift her hips up and down, all the while making the most beautiful noises Daryl had ever heard. Her cries were swallowed, deep in her throat at first, but then he grinded her hips down, flush against him and they got just a little more frantic, higher and more and more breathless.

He could lay her flat on her back and thrust into her with her hair scattered around her head like a stormy halo. But this closeness, this tangle of their bodies, wrapped around one another, was something else, was the best first he could ever hope for, was heartbreaking in its tenderness, uplifting in its quiet sanctity.

Daryl’s thrusts and Rick’s responsive and eager undulations were punctuated by his harsh panting and her urgent mewls and he kissed her, open mouthed and sloppy, with tongue and teeth and her shaky fingers on his jaw. His body urged him to move faster but he maintained the buck and flow until he was mad with it, heat permeating between them and seeping into every pore until he felt too big for his body and her walls clenched warningly. It became way too fucking much and not enough at all and this woman’s body, flayed and ferocious, was meeting him halfway and half delirious with pleasure.

He grit his teeth, thrusting her just a little harder, just a little faster, loving the way she sobbed into his mouth.

“I can’t, I can’t stop. Please, please let me-”

“Do it,” he growled. “Just do it, sweetheart, lemme feel you.”

With a few more thrusts and one long and hard dirty grind she came with a high-pitched cry, squeezing him with her walls and arching her breasts into him, her mouth open and wet, and he followed her on right through. It was like a storm surged inside of him all on its own, fueled by Rick and her body and the fact that he was inside her scarred and warm and beautiful body; like he’d worshipped her where she wanted and though he could never worship her enough or in satisfying entirety, she gifted him with something anyway, something wild and overflowing, something feral and sweet.

Her body sagged against him, arms loosely hanging over his shoulders and her head resting in the crook of his neck. Daryl held her boneless body, breathing heavy and hard and stroking her back, damp with sweat. She kissed his neck sleepily and he pressed one to her temple.

“I’m in love with you, y’know?” came her quiet mumble on his pulse and he huffed a short laugh and lay back down flat on his back, letting her sprawl all over him.

“Well it’s about damn time, woman.”

She nodded drowsily, halfway to sleep. “Mhmm.”

\--

Rick retreated into herself and into the earth once more after the disaster with the herd. Sometimes he caught her staring into nothing, hands clenching and unclenching at her side. Sometimes he saw her take stock of all the entrances and exits of a room, and then repeat the motion numerous times to her satisfaction.

Sometimes Carl would come and sit by her, quiet and thoughtful and equally as fierce as his mother and patiently wait for her to come back. And when she did she smiled and took Carl’s hands between hers and kissed the backs of his knuckles, or stroked his hair. The moment little Judith cried or called for her she was up and awake and aware, carrying her little girl close to her breast and murmuring things like only a mother knew how.

Maybe in another life that’s what Rick would’ve chosen; her children, a garden, maybe even a farm, just somewhere that was teeming with life. Somewhere quiet and serene, somewhere so different from the world they lived in now.

Daryl watched from the corner of a building as Rick hoed the rectangle of fertile land. In one corner of the land a patch of tomatoes was growing, and in another there were potatoes. Once those were harvested they’d have to save some of the plants and do some slash and burn before replanting.

“She’s hiding again,” Carol said as she came up next to him. “Sometimes it makes me wonder what Shane did to her during their supposedly happy years of marriage.”

Daryl frowned and looked at her. “You think _he_ has anything to do with this? After all this time? She got over his death pretty fast.”

Carol shrugged her slender shoulders. “Rick carries around guilt like she was either born into it or it was strapped onto her shoulders, getting heavier and heavier each year. It’s hard to unlearn guilt. Sometimes you go through the real apathetic stage where you just don’t care. We’ve seen that. Right now she’s stepping back because she thinks she’s done something wrong. It’s part of her recovery process, I guess.”

He thought about this, about the heavy guilt and shame she seemed to always have with her. Daryl thought it might’ve been because she always wanted to be able to save people. Maybe that was a big part of it still but perhaps it had always been there, like a voice on her shoulder, like _Shane’s_ voice.

He never thought he could hate a dead man more.

“What made her hate him in the end?”

Carol didn’t seem to have to think for this one. “Carl. Saw Lori and Shane standing too close one time at the farm. Ran straight to Rick and told her. She told me that after punching them both, you know? I remember telling her that they deserved that. She was near shaking with worry about it but in the end her love for Carl won out and she just didn’t care about him anymore. But as I said, it takes a long time to unlearn that sorta thing and sometimes there are other things that go brain-deep.”

“Rick ain’t crazy, though,” he said, feeling the need to defend her.

“No, she’s definitely not,” Carol agreed. “She just gets a little lost sometimes.” Then she picked up a hoe and walked over to help Rick, who smiled, a little lost, a little confused, but accepted the help nonetheless.

Then her eyes caught Daryl’s and she blinked, tilted her head to the side and waved a small, endearing wave. He pushed off the wall a second later and strolled towards her, uncapping a bottle of water and holding it out. She stared at it for a while and then took it, brought it to her lips, and took a long drink. Water beaded on her lips and dripped down her chin and she wiped it away with the back of her hand, getting dirt across her jaw.

He shook his head and swiped it away for her with his thumb.

“You should take a break, Rick,” Carol called. “You’ve been out here for hours. Go have some lunch.”

“You don’t have to do it by yourself, Carol-”

“What, like you?” she teased. “Go on, I got this. Not much more to do anyway.”

She hesitated, shifting from side to side until Daryl slung an arm around her narrow shoulders. “C’mon. Deer burgers.”

“You caught a deer?” she asked, surprised.

“Bambi’s pa. Still got his ma to look out for him.”

She gaped and then laughed. “You’re as bad as my son. Had a pig named Violet back at the prison.”

“I named Bambi. Not his parents. We can eat Bambi next year. Won’t be able to recognize him by then anyway.”

“You have a morbid sense of humor, man,” she chuckled, shaking her head. “You’re lucky I’m starving enough to eat Bambi’s pa.”

He took a good look down at her, the; her protruding collar bones, the fact that her sternum was visible beneath the thin skin of her chest, her bony, bird-like wrists. He knew she had a whole lot of muscle beneath that tiny body but even he could tell that she wasn’t eating right.

“Well, hopefully Bambi’s pa will put some weight on your skinny ass.”

She snorted. “Well, don’t you just know how to ask a girl to dinner. Real charmer you are.”

He knuckled her cheek good-naturedly. “I do my best.”

\--

Daryl woke in stages, intercepted by sleep and light looming up to meet him at intervals. He could smell Rick in the bursts of wakefulness and felt her during short dozes.

At one point he felt the softest lips he’d ever felt on his mouth, plush and gentle and probing. He hadn’t known lips so soft, even in his dreams and if this was one, it was the best one yet. Daryl let his hands wander over the female body on top of him, the silken warmth of her skin and the hardness of her nipples. She purred, luscious and intoxicating and Daryl was made aware of his erection, a monstrous and pounding thing that had him light-headed even in this strange state of not-awake.

With his eyes closed he sought her with his mouth, cupping her small breasts and she kissed him with a soft sigh, parting her lips so he could slip his tongue between them, kissing her dirtily and wetly, sucking on her tongue. She smelled like sex and early morning dust motes suspended on a sunbeam. She tasted faintly of peaches and, strangely, of him.

Daryl felt her smile, satisfied and pleased as her body shifted down his and took the hardness of him in her hand and stroking him languidly, lavishly, before insinuating herself on top of him and pushing herself down until his cock was buried in the glorious cleft of her that parted for him like a flower, warm and wet, inviting and velveteen.

She began to ride him, fluid and rhythmic, her belly taut beneath his searching fingers and he couldn’t hold back his groans, moving ever closer to consciousness. She was a wildcat, a hellcat, a sinuous panther, slinky and lithe and her fingers dug into his chest, the ecstatic mewls and whimpers coming from her mouth making him so hard he had to force himself from cresting.

“R…Rick,” he breathed, squinting his eyes open until her features became pronounced.

She had a blissful smile on her face but her eyes were sharp in the morning light. Her dark brown hair was tangled and messy, evidence of their night together, and all across her body were marks, his marks. Bruises from fingers, bite marks, love marks, the signature of his love for this woman written across her whole body.

“Rick,” he panted, unable to stop the grin from curling his mouth. “What’re you doin’?”

She laughed breathlessly, her expression endearingly shy and wholly at odds with she was currently doing to him. “Looking at you,” she answered honestly, shrugging her shoulder. “You’re really something, Daryl.” And holy shit, she blushed after she said it, curling inwards with a bashful smile. What the fuck was he supposed to do with that?

Shoving the duvet out of the way, he rolled her over and spread her thighs wider with his hands, kissing her deeply and thrusting into her wonderful wet heat. She squeezed his cock beautifully with her strong, slick walls and made the most delightful noises that had him pulling back from her mouth, wanting to see her face.

She bit her lip and eyed either side of his neck, where her teeth had been, and she grinned, all wide and wicked, her body shifting up and down their makeshift bed with each of his powerful thrusts.

“Everyone’s gonna see those and wonder whether you got bit or whether you got laid.”

He chuckled and rolled his hips until her eyes fluttered shut, her mouth parting in ecstasy. “Think it’s obvious I got both,” he drawled, and then sucked a deep, purple hickey just under her jaw. “Then they’re gonna look at you, Miss Grimes, and see that you’ve been well and thoroughly _fucked_.”

She inhaled sharp and shuddering, and her eyes opened, pupils blown black in awe and need and Daryl could’ve come right there but he wanted to fuck one out of her first. She moaned in time with his thrusts, never wanting to take her eyes off him and sometimes they fluttered closed when it became too much but she forced them open again. It was just so _Rick_ , that he kind of fell in love with her all over again. A lot of people might say that this was the worst idea in the history of the walker world, but fuck it if he didn’t have something to look forward to every second of every day. Rick was that something, had been that something for years now.

He moved faster and she got more frantic, strong legs wrapped so tightly around his waist he wouldn’t be able to pull out if he wanted to. Her nails clawed into his back and she arched against him just as he strained into her, needing more, needing _everything_. 

Daryl rode the sensation of pure, alchemical pleasure, a feather caught in the gale force of their lovemaking. Rick’s cries reached a fevered pitch, high and desperate and lost and he sped up his thrusts, grunting and groaning and cursing above her. 

Her face was incredible like this; brows slanted in need, wet, swollen lips and the color high on her cheeks. 

“D-Daryl!” she gasped, squeezing his shoulders. 

He grinned and slammed into her harder and harder until the sounds of wet skin slapping against each other filled the room. 

“You gonna come?”

He followed the movement of her licking her lips and then swallowing. “Uh huh-!”

And then she was squeezing him, squeezing him with her legs, with her corded little arms, with her _cunt_ , as she arched into him, He watched her come apart, and she watched him back and Daryl found that the most overwhelming and sexiest thing he’d ever seen and felt in his life. He came inside her with a grunt and a long, drawn out groan, working his hips slower until he’d milked every last big of the orgasm from her sweaty, wet little body, and then kissed her, heatedly and languid until neither of them could breathe.

“Mmm. Mhm, wow. Oh my god,” she sighed, eyes dreamy and shiny and looking at him like she’d been waiting for him her whole life. He could only speak for himself on that account. She hummed, blissful and docile, their foreheads touching as he got his breath back. “I plan on doing that a whole lot with you, Daryl Dixon.”

He huffed, fondly exasperated. “Like I’d ever wanna stop doing that with you, Miss Grimes.”

She laughed, soft and raspy and pressed one long, lingering kiss to his lips. Just then their walkie-talkie crackled and she groaned. He chuckled and reached over to answer it, aware that his voice was huskier than usual.

“Mornin’ Glenn.”

“Hey, you guys should be clear to come back now. Doesn’t look like the flooding’s too bad.”

“Great. See you in a couple hours.”

“We’re bringing some stuff back,” Rick added, and then sneakily reached up to nibble on Daryl’s ear. “Got food and stuff for bandages and – hey, do we need pots and pans by any chance?”

“Uh, can’t hurt, I guess,” Glenn replied, and Daryl half-heartedly struggled to catch Rick’s wandering hands while he held the talkie with one hand and glared at the bright amusement on her face.

“Great, we got a few.”

In a move that he would’ve been able to counter had one of his hands not been occupied and had his limbs not been kind of useless after everything, she flipped him onto his back, and bit back a laugh at his incredulous, irritated expression, and the way his eyes kept straying to her breasts.

And then, the fucking tease, she pecked the tip of his nose and pushed herself up and knelt on their mess of a nest, digging around the twisted sheets for her panties. Daryl watched her slip them on while Glenn rattled on about how much water they’d collected, and how Rick’s little farm got a good hydrating and how they were just headed to build up some fences and whatever.

“Uh huh, sounds great,” he said absently as Rick tugged on her dry but stiff jeans and slipped on her bra and arched a judging brow at him before sliding her shirt over her shoulders, hiding some of the bruises and marks with each flick of a button. “Listen, Glenn, we’re just gonna load the truck. We’ll call in later.”

“Okay, sure. Later.”

Daryl tossed the device aside and sighed, running his hand through his hair. He didn’t want to leave this place, this apartment where they’d found something special and something sacred and fun at the same time.

In another world. But this wasn’t that world.

“We can come back, y’know?” He looked up at her smiling, hopeful face. “Maggie and Glenn go away together all the time,” she explained. “So we can come back here too.”

He was on his feet a second later, and pulling her in with one hand on the back of her head for a deep, grateful kiss that she returned, getting up onto her tiptoes.

“We’ll come back here,” he agreed, raspy and intimate, like a secret.

\--

When they arrived back at Alexandria, Carl and Judith were already waiting by the gate and Judith released one of her ecstatic, high-pitched squeals at seeing her ma. Daryl couldn’t help but grin as Carl flew her over and Rick stealthily squeezed his hand before getting out of the truck to hug her kids. She carried baby Judith, who was babbling excitedly into her ear as Rick began directing some of the Alexandria folk towards the trunk and the backseat. 

“We’ve got this, Ericka,” Deanna reassured her, patting her arm. “You go get some rest; doesn’t look like you got much sleep last night.”

Rick didn’t turn to look at Daryl but he could tell it was a close thing. Carl, on the other hand, was one astute little bastard, and flicked his eyes – just like his ma’s – to meet Daryl’s impassive gaze. He gave the kid this, this need to measure him up, to read him; it was something he’d always liked about Carl, the fact that he wanted to protect his mother. 

He must’ve liked something in Daryl, though, must’ve trusted him more than he trusted Shane or even Jessie, who wasn’t subtle about his interest in Rick. Carl just rolled his eyes and pulled a face before chasing after his ma and sister. 

Daryl dug through the back seat, handing things out to people, but paused when he saw the bag he’d packed especially. It was filled with their sheets - _their sheets_ \- and that soft blue sweater that was too big on Rick but made her look utterly fuckable. 

Those were his. And hers. They weren’t going anywhere.

Because he firmly intended on seeing her in them and on them again. 

He pulled the bag out, keeping it close so the others knew not to touch, and on instinct, stopped and looked up at Rick’s retreating back. As if she had heard him, felt some silent call that had been released from his being without him yet knowing, she stopped too and turned around, staring at him from across an insignificant distance that had never felt so wide and immeasurable. 

She gazed at him from across that reach with those unimaginable eyes of hers, with that awe and wonder, like she’d just realized something profound and important enough to bring tears to her eyes. And he felt it too, felt it so deeply that it sizzled and burned through every nerve in his body. Judith in her arms, Carl a shadow by her side, and Rick, broken, bright, tattered and inconceivable. 

She opened her mouth, as if to say something, and then closed it again. She didn’t need to. Because Daryl already knew.

“I’ll see you later, Miss Grimes,” he said to himself, a promise to her. 

She heard, though, and silently mouthed something back before her lips spread into the sweetest smile. Then she turned and walked back home.


End file.
